‘Don’t cry!’ Sir Richard said. ‘You are quite safe.’
She caught her breath on a sob, and stiffened in his hold. He felt her little hands close on his arm. Then she began to tremble.
‘No, there is nothing to frighten you,’ he said in his cool way. ‘You will be better directly.’
‘Oh!’ The exclamation sounded terrified. ‘Who are you? Oh, let me go!’
‘Certainly I will let you go, but are you able to stand yet? You do not know me, but I am perfectly harmless, I assure you.’
She made a feeble attempt to struggle up, and succeeded only in crouching on the path in a woebegone huddle, saying through her sobs: ‘I must go! Oh, I must go! I ought not to have come!’
‘That I can well believe,’ said Sir Richard, still on his knee beside her. ‘Why did you come? Or is that an impertinent question?’
It had the effect of redoubling her sobs. She buried her face in her hands, shuddering, and rocking herself to and fro, and gasping out unintelligible phrases.
‘Well!’ said a voice behind Sir Richard.
He looked quickly over his shoulder. ‘Pen! What are you doing here?’
‘I followed you,’ replied Pen, looking critically down at the weeping girl. ‘I brought a stout stick too, because I thought you were going to meet the odious stammering man, and I feel sure he means to do you a mischief. Who is this?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ replied Sir Richard. ‘And presently I shall have something to say to you on the subject of this idiotic escapade of yours! My good child, can’t you stop crying?’
‘What is she doing here?’ asked Pen, unmoved by his strictures.
‘Heaven knows! I found her lying on the path. How does one make a female stop crying?’
‘I shouldn’t think you could. She’s going to have a fit of the vapours, I expect. And I donotsee why you should hug people, if you don’t know who they are.’
‘I was not hugging her.’
‘It looked like it to me,’ argued Pen.
‘I suppose,’ said Sir Richard sardonically, ‘you would have had me step over her, and walk on?’
‘Yes, I would,’ replied Pen promptly.
‘Don’t be a little fool! The girl had fainted.’
‘Oh!’ Pen moved forward. ‘I wonder what made her do that? You know, it all seems extremely odd to me.’
‘It seems quite as odd to me, let me tell you.’ He laid his hand on the sobbing girl’s shoulder. ‘Come! You will not help matters by crying. Can’t you tell me what has happened to upset you so?’
The girl made a convulsive effort to choke back her hystericaltears, and managed to utter: ‘I was so frightened!’
‘Yes, that I had realized. What frightened you?’
‘There was a man!’ gasped the girl. ‘And I hid, and then another man came, and they began to quarrel, and I dared not move for fear they should hear me, and the big one hit the other, and he fell down and lay still, and the big one took something out of his pocket, and went away, and oh, oh, he passed so close I c-could have touched him only by stretching out my hand! The other man never moved, and I was so frightened I ran, everything went black, and I think I fainted.’
‘Ran away?’ repeated Pen in disgusted accents. ‘What a poor-spirited thing to do! Didn’t you go to help the man who was knocked down?’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ shuddered the girl.
‘I must say, I don’t think you deserve to have such an adventure. And if I were you I wouldn’t continue sitting in the middle of the path. It isn’t at all helpful, and it makes you look very silly.’
This severe speech had the effect of angering the girl. She reared up her head, and exclaimed: ‘How dare you? You are the rudest young man I ever met in my life!’
Sir Richard put his hand under her elbow, and assisted her to her feet. ‘Ah – accept my apologies on my nephew’s behalf, ma’am!’ he said, with only the faintest quiver in his voice. ‘A sadly ill-conditioned boy! May I suggest to you that you should rest on this bank for a few moments, while I go to investigate the – er – scene of the assault you so graphically described? My nephew – who has, you perceive, provided himself with a stout stick – will charge himself with your safety.’
